It is desirable in the construction of chandeliers to provide crystal ornaments in the form of stars, flowers or rings that can be, for example, mounted on the center post of the chandelier frame. Such stars, flowers or rings in the past were formed by attaching several individual crystal jewels or ornaments to a retaining structure formed of metal.
FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate a star ornament structure according to the prior art. In this example, the centerpiece is formed from cast zinc or stamped steel. The centerpiece 20 is in the shape of a star. It is constructed from a pair of identical castings 22 and 24 that include respective pins 26 and 28 or projections. The pins are located and are sized to engage respective holes 30 in crystal ornaments 32. A crystal ornament 32 is located on each "point" 34 of the centerpiece 20. The crystal ornaments 32 are then held in a circular configuration by the identical castings 22, 24 which themselves are permanently joined. The resulting structure resembles a crystal flower or ring defined by a perimeter of crystal ornaments. The gap G between ornaments can vary depending upon the design. Likewise, the exact shape of the centerpiece 20 and ornaments 32 can be varied. The ornaments 32 can be disposed within a common plane, as illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, or can be formed into a bowl-shape or cone by varying the shapes of the top and bottom star sections. In particular, the angle of the ornaments can be changed by changing the angles of the respective walls 38 and 40 of the ornament pocket 42 defined between the two centerpiece halves 22 and 24.
In the example of FIGS. 1 and 2, the centerpiece halves 22 and 24 are held securely together by a grommet 46 that passes through the open center 48 of the star 20. The opposing ends of the grommet 46 are bent into radially-outwardly-facing lips 50 and 51 to overlap the inner perimeter faces 52 and 54, respectively, of each of the halves 22 and 24. The grommet 46 is also open at its center for mounting on a chandelier frame.
The ornament structure of FIGS. 1 and 2 is problematic and costly to manufacture. For a given set of identical ornaments, it is likely that one or more of the ornaments have mounting holes that are slightly different in shape and size. When each glass or crystal ornament is formed under high temperature, a punch pin, that is integral with the mold, pierces a mounting hole in a portion of the ornament. The intense heat of the molding process often burns away portions of the punch pin. The punch pin is occasionally replaced, due to erosion. But before replacement, a partially-eroded pin may have been used to form several of the ornaments in a given production run. Thus, for a given production run of ornaments, the hole sizes may be widely variable. Thus, the retaining pins 26 and 28 (FIGS. 1 and 2) of a given centerpiece can be oversized relative to some mounting holes. By forcing retaining pin into an undersized mounting hole, the ornament may break. Conversely, the retaining pins 26 and 28 may be too small to closely engage an oversized mounting hole. Thus, the ornament tends to wobble within the centerpiece, resulting in undesirable misalignment.
Even if the mounting holes and pins interengage precisely, breakage of ornaments can result during the cleaning process. Since the centerpiece halves are usually formed from non-resilient metal, application of excess pressure to the ornaments can cause the ornaments to break. Additionally, the use of solid metal centerpiece halves generally limits the applicability of the prior art joining process to machine-cut glass ornaments. This is because machine-cut glass ornaments are fairly uniform in thickness. Conversely, hand cut ornaments can vary greatly in thickness. The assembly process also requires the precision formation of two centerpiece halves. The centerpiece halves must be carefully filled with ornaments and aligned and the resulting halves must be joined together with a grommet. Application of too much joining force or misalignment of the halves can cause ornament breakage, leading to waste and excess manufacturing costs.
In view of the disadvantages of the prior art, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved joining device for chandelier ornaments that is easy to manufacture and assemble. The joining device should be formable by relatively-cost efficient stamping or cutting techniques without the need of complex casting or metal-forming processes. The structure should be versatile, enabling the mounting of a variety of shapes and sizes of ornaments without substantial risk of breakage. The structure should also hold a set of ornaments firmly despite minor variations in shape and mounting hole Size. The structure should also be easy to align for rapid assembly.